The Fried Egg Cup Results Page

It’s here, the long overdue and long final FEC of 2023/2024. Maybe it gives those who are voting this afternoon something to entertain you while you stand in line.

It seems the Easter update landed like season 8 of Game of Thrones. I hope nobody woke up with leprosy (for 5 bonus points). I guess there are some subjects that should not be joked about. So, no more transgender commentary.

Ha, ha, whom I kidding. It’s been all the news this last month. In the UK, the Cass review of Gender Identity Services for Children was finally released, dealing a devastating blow to the prevailing narrative. The review concluded that the evidence in support of puberty blockers and hormone therapy remains unclear, there has been woefully little follow up on the over 9000 children who have been treated with them and that effects on cognitive and psychosexual development remain unclear. In addition, the review found that that majority of children who had been treated had other underlying conditions, such as autism, or had suffered some form of abuse, making them particularly vulnerable.

Needless to say, Dr Cass has now been advised to avoid public transport due to threats of reprisals by the “just be kind” alphabet people.

All of this has been a little too late for likes of Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan, whose career has been decimated by his anti-trans views. Even the spineless lickspittles (Gervais excluded) that make up the British comedy sector seem to have been emboldened enough to finally make an anti-trans joke on TV.

It’s also been a good month for kiddies author and woman’s rights activist J.K. Rowling, who has been constantly attacked for her views. Asked recently if she expected an apology from acclaimed developmental biologist Dr Daniel Raticliffe or celebrated paediatric psychologist Professor Emma Watson, she said they could save their apologies for the children who had been experimented on.

Not expecting anything from Harry or Hermione. I imagine they will move on to the next trendy cause for slacktivist celebrities needing a profile boost. Expect to see them holding hands with Greta or marching with Susan Sarandon or Charlotte Church at a Gaza protest.

What is it with Hollywood celebs and their pathological use of children as accessories. The latest trend is to have non-binary kids (see Charlize, Jamie-Lee Curtis, Jennifer Garner, Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie and the list goes on). It’s the 2020’s version of adopting an African child…

Over in Aus, all eyes (except for the stabby part of Sydney – more later) have been on Tickle vs Giggle (I shit you not). Delightful lady (sadly, still struggling to eliminate facial hair) Roxy Tickle is suing founder of woman only website Giggle for Girls, Sall Grover, for discrimination for not allowing “her” to join the platform Grover set up as a safe space for woman, after her experiences while working as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Tickle’s strategy has been to try and convince the court of her womanhood (surgery, hormones, clothes, identity documents), while Grover’s attorney summed it up beautifully by saying if Tickle felt entitled to access a woman’s only safe space he lacked the psychology of a woman. Decision pending.

On the other side of the Atlantic, things are still more Ticklish. A woman in Alaska was banned by Planet Fitness for photographing a biological male shaving (facial hair is a bitch) in the ladies’ locker room. The resulting backlash caused a significant fall in Planet Fitness membership across the States.

In a rare display of proactive thinking and reputational management Virgin Active has released a statement confirming that it is “committed to creating safe and inclusive spaces for all our members”, which of course means you can use the facilities reflecting your recognised gender identify. So, as long as it’s an official lady penis, you’re good to go.

In the US, whoever was in charge of controlling Biden last month clearly feels Trump is no threat so it was safe strike a blow against woman and girls by changing Title IX, the statute that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance, to gender-based, rather than sex-based discrimination. Expect loads of new track and field records in the ladies section.

It’s a tough time to be a woman in the US. The right is fighting to take away your bodily autonomy and the left is fighting to erase your biological identity.

Trump was back in court this week, this time for the Stormy Daniels hush money trial. Its amazing he manages to find time to cheat at golf. The highlight, dare I say it, was Stormy asserting that she made him “my bitch” in bed. Try to get that image out of your head.

On the subject of vacuous morons, Travis Kelce (and his brother Jason), Taylor Swift’s current future breakup song inspiration, was finally able to receive his diploma (Interdisciplinary studies, WTF?) from the University of Cincinnati at a special ceremony on campus during a live recording of his podcast (vomit). To add the necessary gravity to the occasion he walked onto the stage to the Beastie Boys “You gotta fight” and downed a beer. Yes, this is who your children are looking up to.

Shortly after, Kelce’s teammate and conservative Catholic, Harrison Buttker, gave a commencement speech at a conservative Catholic college where he spoke about traditional family values and how his wife chose to give up her career to raise a family. You can sign a petition to have him fired by the Chiefs.

The crisis in Journalisming seemingly continues unabated. This time round it was the turn of that one-time bastion of independent journalism, but recently descended into largely polarising opionistas, the Daily Maverick to wail about hard it is to keep a quality publication going when your core demographic, self-flagellating white liberals continues to shrink.

To hammer the message home, Branko, Ferrial and the team decided to give everyone the day off and shut down the site to show everyone how democracy dies in the dark. Even hardcore investigative reporter Pauli van Wyk chipped in on X to say that without DM, where would she publish her stories.

As a stunt, the team must have been overjoyed by the level of engagement it generated on social media, from both sides of the political spectrum. They were probably less enthused by the fact that over 90% of the engagement was basically “that’s a great start, now for the other 364 days”.

In a way, I feel sad for them. You’d have thought that after how faithfully they parroted the government / WHO / WEF covid response, the Gates foundation may have been a little more charitable. Oh well, choose your friends.

One of the main threats to mainstream media is the emergence of the citizen journalist. These days, anyone with a smartphone and a social media account can break a story. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, everything, spectacularly! Back to stabby Australia. In the aftermath of the horrific mall attack in Sydney, when the first grainy CCTV images showed the attacker may have been slightly off-white the legions of Islamophopes were out in force demanding mass deportation and public executions. Not to be outdone, some prominent pro-Palestine accounts trawled through LinkedIn and found a Jewish student, Benjamin Cohen, who bore a passing resemblance to the attacker and confidently outed him. Channel 7 News, displaying levels of diligence and integrity that have come to characterise news organisations, happily ran with the story. Young Benji has now lawyered up and is suing all and sundry, so may not need that degree after all.

In the end it turned out the attacker was just a regular woman-hating incel. The tragedy of it all is that if he was that desperate to see a naked woman in real life, all he needed was a Virgin Active membership.

Finally, in the news, democracy.

Its election time, that special time where the well intentioned and nefarious launch their one-man bands in the hope of getting a well-paying seat in parliament, secure in the knowledge that they won’t ever have to deliver on any of the promises they make.

It’s also the time that excites the hell out of people who own commercial printing works, in China. The ANC runs a country with a stagnating economy and chooses to have their election posters printed in fucking China. Most only went up last week because of a delay in shipping them over. A week later and it would have been the most ANC thing ever.

Do we actually learn anything from the five posters that adorn each of the 55 million lamp posts across the country. I think we do.

Firstly, I’ve learned that Good are the most innovative, being the only party to print in landscape. Either that or Aunty Pat has packed them on after five years of feeding at the cabinet trough and portrait was a little unflattering. On to their messaging “Stop the suffering”. One can only assume that the tourism portfolio that she heads up doesn’t contribute and it’s the other useless pricks in cabinet that are responsible for the “suffering”.

The IFP has chosen to use dead ex-leader Mongasuthu Bhutelezi as their election figurehead. A dead bloke for a dead party, seems fitting.

Just when you figured the cockwombles over that the DA strategy centre had finally seen the light and realised that sticking Johnny-boy’s ugly mug on the posters wasn’t winning friends, by putting up new ones with just the “Save SA” message, someone thinks it’s a good idea to have a flag burning ad. Jesus, we know its symbolism and all, but we live in a place that believes Cyril when he says the DA will bring apartheid back.

Posters also tell you those for whom it’s their first rodeo, like journalist turned saviour Songezo Zibi’s Rise. Picture the scene in their swanky Sandton headquarters.

Starry-eyed former DA acolyte – “Mr Zibi sir, we need strong backing.”

“Don’t worry, the Oppenheimer’s and the Brenthurst Foundation have us covered.”

“No, I mean we need it for the pos…”

“I said, don’t worry, we’re sorted. Now go out there and get those posters up”

And so, up go a million posters without any sort of backing, that fold like a novice at the final table of the World Series of Poker at the first hint of a breeze.

And finally, on the way to Clovelly, I came across two posters for the obscure Organic Humanity Movement (apparently only on this side of the lentil curtain). The fact that their poster does not say “Vote OHM, join the resistance” upsets me at a visceral level (arts guys, ask and engineer – there are plenty on this group).

What a topsy-turvy month of sport it has been. The Sharks won a trophy, Rory won a trophy, Antoine duPont won a trophy, even Manchester fucking United won a trophy.

This last month saw lots of action on the golf front, with two Majors and the GI. In April, Scottie Scheffler channelled his inner Nelly Korda to win again, this time the Masters. Despite several LIV stars in the field it suffered the lowest viewership in ages – so much for the benefits of unity. To be fair, if people wanted six hour threeballs they’d play Rondebosch on a Sunday. Sure, it was windy and the course was hard, but come on. On Friday night I had to open a second bottle of wine to get through broadcast and I packed it in early on Sunday when it became clear nobody cared enough to mount a challenge.

The focus was briefly diverted from golf on Friday night by the outbreak of WW3, as Iran retaliated for Israel’s bombing of its embassy in Syria. Fortunately it only ended up being the world’s most expensive, if visually disappointing, fireworks display as all 200+ drones and missiles were shot down before any real damage was done and after that they obviously settled in to watch the golf.

Some titbits from the Masters. Perennial favourite (at least for Paddy and I) Bernhard Langer missed the tournament (which may have been his last chance) due to a ruptured achilles. My sympathy was somewhat tempered when I found out he injured himself playing fucking pickleball!

Wyndham Clark was -3 through 9 and after carding a first round 73 felt he was still in a good position and didn’t see any real threat from the LIV golfers since they only play 54 holes. After a second round 78 he missed the cut. Missed the cut again at the PGA. Perhaps the Tour can run some 36 hole tournaments just for dickheads like him.

Brian Harmon was -2 through 10, then dropped 11 shots on his last 8 holes to go 34-47 for a rumbler. A second round 72 was not enough for him to see the weekend. Still smarting from the rumbler he gave the bitchiest 43 second interview after the first round at Harbour Town the following week, describing his birdies in monosyllables and refusing to say anything about his bogeys. What a champ.

Jason Day rocked up on day 2 dressed like Happy Gilmore, you know, to “grow the game”. As Berry opined, its important to show the new generation of aspirant golfers that it’s not just a sport for rich old white cunts. Almost immediately, in stepped Fred Ridley (why do the commentators insist on telling us he’s Tiger’s lawyer every time they mention him) to remind Jason of the fact that that its precisely what Augusta is all about.

Tiger continued to tarnish his legacy. After making the cut at +1 he shot 82-77 over the weekend to finish dead last. His insistence that he can still be competitive “if everything comes together” is making him look like that balding lothario with the beer gut and royal blue Sierra RX7 in the Peddler’s parking lot who thinks “if everything comes together” he can nail one more 24 year old, not realising that he’s actually just a sad caricature of his former self.

Nelly won again…

Oh, and Rory won again. Not a major, but still, its something. The next day he announced he was getting divorced, so fair play for the single-minded determination. That’s a step further than Will’s tooth extraction and 80 balls on the range to find form again. While some reckon he’s trying to hard to follow in Tiger’s footsteps, Erica has said that she became increasingly lonely and it reached breaking point. However, rumours abound, with suggestions that Erica was trying out some non-standard moves with her jiu-jitsu instructor, while Rory and CBS correspondent Amanda Balionis’ matching outfits and flirty interview at Quail Hollow got some tongues wagging.

Someone who’s partner won’t be getting lonely due to his hectic travel schedule is the original heartbreak kid, Adriel Poonan, who in a display of bed shitting that rivalled Spud from Trainspotting, lost his Vusi Ngobeni-linked Sunshine Tour playing privileges. After birdies on his first two holes of round 3 he held the lead on his own at -11. What followed was a horror show of calamitous proportion, with 13 bogeys and a double vs only four birdies over the last 34 holes. This saw him drop from 1st to T34, not only costing him his Sunshine Tour card (top 12), but even Big Easy Tour privileges (Top 30). Who says Huddle can’t crush you.

Last weekend saw the ugly stepsister of the majors, played on a seemingly defenceless Valhallah. Xander Schauffele birdied the last to win on -21 and become the most popular Major winner since Brian Harmon. You know things are dire when you’re actually rooting for Bryson.

The field ended a combined 214 under par, a massive improvement on the previous best of 40 over par at Riviera in 1995 and 59 over at Bellerieve in 2018.

However, by far the biggest story of the week was Scottie Scheffler’s arrest for second degree felony assault (among other misdemeanours) of a police officer, after some dipshit (with a long record of improper conduct) jumped on his car as he crawled past an accident scene at the course entrance. Thank god it wasn’t Tiger as they’d probably have shot him – it was Kentucky after all. After doing his warm up routine in his cell he was rushed to the course to shoot 66. Then, for some inexplicable reason he gave Tim the day off on Saturday and shot 73, costing him the tournament.

At the annual GI, impeccably organised (as usual) by Stix, Paddy produced a performance worthy of peak Tiger, to win by an astonishing 12 strokes. This despite chunking his 8 iron every time he took it out his bag.

The glorious St Fancis Links gave us a bit of everything, from scorching heat on Friday to howling wind on Saturday, which necessitated the blue jersey of inclement weather as the sun began to set.

Paddy’s 40 pointer on Sunday was a text book display of accurate hybrid play, akin to his idol Bernhard’s display at last year’s Senior US Open. It was also 5 points better than anything anyone else could muster all weekend. Kudos to Berry who came from the second to last group to finish second ahead of Andy G and Rob.

The player auction added an exciting new dimension to the even and provided Paddy, who confidently bought himself, an opportunity to win enough to pay for his next tour.

So laser-like was Paddy’s focus that it took him a full nine holes of post-GI golf to realise that he had now entered a between event handicap management phase. Fortunately, after realising his error over a halfway packed lunch he followed his front nine 35 with a back nine 44 and normal service was resumed.

Finally, on to the FEC, which after 11 months of intense competition came down to a tie between Gert and Rob. Gert appeared to have amassed an unassailable lead with three months to go, before the startling realisation that it’s hard to make loads of points, even at Huddle, when you’re playing off almost scratch. This gave me the opportunity to claw my way into the lead deep into April and it came down to the last putt on the final day of the season, where Gert had an 8 footer for the title. You can’t script this shit. After an agonising miss it came down to playoff over round 1 of the GI to determine the winner.

Would it be like that famous cross country race, where Abel Mutai led the whole way, but was confused by the setup at the finish and stopped just short of the line, only for second placed Ivan Fernandez to guide him across the finish line for the win? Fuck that, I took out the “Doos” marker and racked up 22 points on the front nine to storm to victory. The golfing gods proceeded to dish up a solid helping of karma in the form of 9 points on the back nine and with it any chance of a GI victory.

April saw the FEC finally get a live-ish leaderboard. Not fully live, partly because I have some sort of a life, but mainly because I have the technical competence on the IT team over at HNA and was saving the updates into my “downloads” folder, rather than the google drive.

FEC 2024/25 will have a live leaderboard from the start.

While there was a general consensus that the current FEC format was a lot better than the preceding one, there will be some new innovations going forward. No Berry, you can’t buy more FEC rounds.

We will be introducing the option of Wildcard rounds. Each player is entitled to two Wildcards over the 11 month period, the first of which can be used during the first five months and the second during the second five months. You cannot use a wildcard in April.

As the FEC is used for to qualify for the TPC we want to create an opportunity for people who may have missed a month for whatever reason, or would like to risk a chance of improving a poor scoring month.

How it works – the Wildcard round needs to be declared as such before teeing off and you need to declare for which month it will be counting. For example, you can be playing in August and declare that this is a Wildcard score that will count for May, either because you didn’t have a FEC score in May or because your highest was a 26 and you’re confident you can improve on that. HOWEVER, the Wildcard score is binding, even if it is way worse that the existing score, so be careful.

Finally, to like “grow the game”, you will be allowed to wear Malbon kit while FECcing. Jokes, we have decided to open up the FEC to people who may not be eligible for the TPC (i.e. your underage kids), provided they pay their entrance fees and abide by the other FEC rules.

I will put out a separate message asking for entries and giving details for payment. Bring on June 1 and happy FECcing.

I’ll end this with the same message as the end of last year…

Sadly though, Rob will continue to write shit.